Smith’s Last Word

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32020, 21 June 1969, Page 13

Smith’s Last Word

SALISBURY, June 20.

The Prime Minister (Mr lan Smith) on the eve of Rhodesia’s constitutional referendum, again bluntly rejected the idea of majority African rule, and declared: “There will be no hand-over in Rhodesia.”

He called on Bhodesians to give him a resounding “yes" on the two crucial questions to be put to the electorate. “If some people still insist that they can settle with the British, then the honest thing for them to do is to admit that they accept a hand-over to majority rule,” Mr Smith said.

Mr Smith was having the last word in the three-week

referendum campaign being fought over Government plans to introduce a new apartheidstyle. constitution under the flag of a republic. Victory for Mr Smith on both counts seemed certain as the white-dominated electorate prepared to vote. Mr Smith repeated an old

accusation —that Britain was obsessed with majority rule — and said: "This is the crux of the whole issue . . . are you prepared to accept a handover?”

About 90,000 Bhodesians are eligible to vote. Of them, some 86,000 are whites. The others are Africans, Asians and Coloured (people of mixed race).

The certainty of a “yes” vote will put the final seal of failure on British efforts to settle the constitutional struggle that began when Bhodesia proclaimed independence in November, 1965.